


Recovery

by Aithilin



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Childhood, Childhood Friendship, Fluff, Gen, Selkies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-22
Updated: 2018-04-22
Packaged: 2019-04-26 07:06:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14396853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aithilin/pseuds/Aithilin
Summary: Regis brought Noctis to Galahd to recover from the daemon attack when he was young.





	Recovery

When Noctis woke, it was to the sound of the wind through the trees. It was to the decadent greens beyond his window, and the faint salt air trickling through along the breeze. When he woke from his sleep— sore, stiff, scared— he didn’t notice the lush green of the forest outside of his forest, or the taste of ocean salt on the tip of the air; the sweet fragrance of forest blossoms twisted through with the freshness of the water. He didn’t hear the birds in the branches above, or the distant voices from elsewhere. 

When Noctis woke, all he heard and saw and knew was that the bed he was on was soft. And not his own. 

He clung to his father as best he could, wounds protesting every movement and shift. He gripped at the fine material of his father’s suit, and took comfort in how close he was, begging for answers without risking his father pulling away to provide the explanations. 

“You’re in Galahd, Noctis. You’re safe.”

He knew about Galahd. He knew his father had friends there, that it was still an ally to Lucis. He knew from lessons and talk in the Citadel that the islands were rich greens and stony shores. That the stretches of sandy beach were for the tourists, but the canyons and rivers and rocky cliffs were for those who lived there. He knew that the sky could go on forever over the ocean, and that the long grasses that bled into the forest could hide all sorts of frogs and bugs for him to find. 

Noctis knew that his father meant it when he said they were safe. 

There was a young man who sat with him sometimes. The son of the friend who had taken them in. He was older, and stronger, and confident. And he liked stories. 

Noctis much preferred Selena. She was closer to his age, a few years older. She was quick with her smiles and adventures and tall tales of daring escapes in ocean storms and lost caves in the depths of the forest. She brought flowers for his room, and sat with her mother as wounds were tended. She explained every touch and bandage and salve applied to drive out the Scourge and to help him heal. 

She laughed. Easily and often. And told him fairy tales.

She draped a fur across him when it was cold. Her big dark eyes bright in the chilly nights, as she told him that it was just on loan. He never hesitated to give it back when asked— oblivious in his youth to the smiles it earned him from the adults. From Selena’s big brother. It became a game between them as she wheeled him around the Ulric lands. The fur draped across his legs or shoulders, his hands twisting in it as he admired the softness, the sturdy nature. He thought it was just a blanket. Just a trinket heirloom Selena loved. And he loved it because she did. 

They took him to the tide pools, where the water collected enough for him to relearn how to swim. 

Nyx would sit nearby, a fur similar to the one Selena loaned out draped across his shoulders to ward off the cold airs. He would smile as he built them a fire, as Noctis watched in awe with wide eyes as he snatched fish out of the pools for their lunch, as he sat with some project or another while sitting guard for them. While Selena teased him. 

Noctis would stretch in the water there, the ocean only a few metres away across the rocky shore. He’d splash and swim with Selena, laughing as his leg grew stronger. As his back started to feel better. 

“Just like that, little prince,” Nyx said during one of the afternoons when Selena couldn’t bring him out to the waters.

They sat together, Noctis drying in the afternoon sun, with Nyx’s hands guiding his own. The lessons in knots came first, came in the evenings while the adults talked and planned and Clarus kept half an eye on him as he sat with Nyx and Selena and played with the nets they were working on. Instead of the heavy ropes meant to survive sea and fish, Nyx had him making a smaller one, stretched within a loop of wood. 

Noctis liked the challenge, needing Nyx’s strength to tie off the little net tightly, so it didn’t droop in its frame. He liked slipping the red and green beads into the pattern, and smiled as Nyx recognised the touch of Carbuncle added to the craft. 

“And this will help with the nightmares?” Noctis asked when Nyx first suggested it. “It’ll make them go away?”

“It’ll help,” Nyx agreed, holding a carefully coloured green bead for Noctis to thread; “it’ll trap them until morning. And Carbuncle will eat them up for you.”

“He doesn’t eat bad dreams.”

“That’s what the story said.”

“Carbuncle would leave them out for the sun. Or turn them into good dreams instead.”

“Why do you say that?”

“I asked him.”

“Fair enough, little prince.”

Nyx found feathers for the little dreamcatcher Noctis has created, shining scales from their lunch, and a shell he broke apart on the dark rocks. He added them to the strings beneath the netting himself, and held it up to show Noctis how it shined in the light. How it would shine above him in the night. 

The news of Tenebrae shattered the careful peace in Galahd. 

The adults, their parents fretted and planned, and Noctis remembered being scooped up in the night by his father as Clarus had their things taken out of the little house they had been borrowing. He remembered the cold night air and Selena’s smile as she draped that fur across his shoulders again. As they settled in the boat on the coast, and she sat close to him, telling him that he was going home. Back to his towering Citadel and the shining city they had been able to see on the clear nights across the water. 

He sat nestled against his father on the boat— the royal vessel Noctis didn’t know was even in Galahd with them. And he listed to his father and Clarus talk about how the Empire was searching for them, how they were in danger now that Tenebrae had been conquered in full and their allies in the forested nation gone silent. How they couldn’t risk the same happening to Galahd. 

How they were taking Nyx and Selena to the safety of the city. 

Noctis watched the waters pass behind them in the night, pretending in his drowsy haze that he saw shadows in the wake of the boat. Selena slept against him, holding the fur she had draped across both of their legs tight even in sleep. 

Noctis smiled as Nyx arrived. As the boat slowed enough for a creature— a seal, water slick and heaving— to pull itself from the water. He smiled as the creature shuddered on the little step that led into the water, and Nyx shrugged off his own fur to add to the blanket made by his sister’s. As Nyx settled with them, and glanced at the King and Shield still talking in the night about fires and dangers and an Empire that would burn the world to ashes if it meant taking Lucis. 

“It’s wet,” Noctis whispered as Nyx settled on his other side, hand going to the fur to hold it in place anyway. 

“I’m wet, little prince.”

“You’re coming to Lucis too?”

“Yeah,” later, in the Citadel, Nyx would be the only one tall enough to hang his little shining dreamcatcher in the window, marvelling at the ravines of neon and steel and concrete below. He would be the only one tall enough to reach the shelf Noctis offered to keep the furs while they were in the city. The keys to the chest given to the three of them only. “I’m going to look after you.”

“I’ll keep your fur safe,” Noctis promised then, hands fisted in the furs in the dark as the light of the city grew brighter.


End file.
